Debate about short-haul flights: Union criticizes Baerbock

Airplane taking off at Frankfurt Airport

Photo: Daniel Reinhardt / DPA

A few months before the federal election, a debate unfolds about the possible abolition of short-haul flights in Germany.

After first SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz and then Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock have spoken out in favor of the prospective abolition of this type of travel, there is now protest in the Union and FDP.

The Federal Government's Tourism Commissioner, Thomas Bareiß, warned that climate protection should not be at the expense of vacation planning for low-income families. "I think that traveling and flying must continue to be possible for everyone in the future and not become a luxury for the few," he said. "Anyone who thinks that bans and disproportionate price increases are the right means is on the wrong track."

Union faction vice Ulrich Lange (CSU) spoke almost word for word to the editorial network Germany. It would be "antisocial if the flight on vacation were a privilege for the wealthy," he said. The CDU European MP Dennis Radtke put it more pointedly. "Absolute parade discipline: get off everywhere without anything else to get on is even approximately on the same level," he wrote on Sunday on Twitter.

FDP parliamentary director Marco Buschmann called Baerbock's proposal an example of the Greens' »ban fetish«.

"We do not want Ms. Baerbock to micro-manage daily life," said Buschmann of the Saarbrücker Zeitung.

"It would be better to put a tight cap on Germany's CO2 emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. We can then leave it to supply and demand as to how they are used."

Criticism also came from FDP parliamentary group vice Michael Theurer.

"The goal of climate protection policy should be to protect the climate," he said on Sunday.

"Instead, the Greens are once again focusing on making people's lives more expensive, controlling them and banning them from enjoying life." It would be better to focus on climate-neutral future technologies and EU emissions trading as an incentive system.

However, the Greens co-boss had neither explicitly advertised a ban on short-haul flights, nor had she spoken out in favor of making travel more expensive overall.

Instead, she criticized the fact that taxpayers' money subsidizes kerosene, while long-distance train journeys are expensive, especially at peak times.

"If you travel as a family by train, you should pay less than for the short distance by plane," said Baerbock.

Plea for rapid expansion of the rail network

Even cheap prices such as 29 euros for Mallorca flights should no longer exist if you are serious about climate policy, said the Greens co-boss.

“Everyone can go on vacation wherever they want.

But climate-friendly taxation of flights would stop such dumping prices. "

"And yes, there should no longer be short-haul flights in the future," added Baerbock - leaving it open, however, as to whether she wanted to make such flights obsolete through bans, market mechanisms or in some other way.

SPD Chancellor candidate Scholz had argued that no flight should be cheaper "than the airport charges and all other charges that are incurred".

Further regulations are legally difficult.

But that means at least that there can be certainly no flight for less than 50 to 60 euros.

Even that is still quite cheap, compared to what air travel would have cost in the past.

The left-wing member of the Bundestag Jörg Cezanne recently called for a kerosene tax on domestic flights in order to increase the pace of the shift to more climate-friendly alternatives such as train travel.

The left-wing member of the Bundestag, Andreas Wagner, pleaded on Twitter on Sunday for a rapid expansion of the long-distance rail network.

"Those who improve rail services, expand their transport capacities and make rail travel cheaper than short-haul flights not only contribute to climate protection, but also enable affordable family visits and travel for those on a tight budget," he said

ssu / dpa